Sagaria (87 page)

If only Snowmane would unfurl those wings of his and take to the air…

The slave compound grew smaller behind them. Now Snowmane was getting further ahead of the black steed. White froth was trickling back from the corners of the stallion's mouth, slicking Sagandran's hands. The horse's breathing was becoming loud and labored, yet still he galloped on. Then, looking ahead of him at the too-swiftly onrushing ground, Sagandran realized where he was going. He tried to give shout of protest, but nothing would come.

The gorge!

With Snowmane strangely reluctant to spread his wings and fly, he was surely going to plummet straight over the edge. The drop wasn't as great as it had been from his perch halfway up the cliff, of course, but who cared whether he fell ten thousand feet or just a couple of hundred?

The sound of Memo's voice came back to him, clearly audible despite the thundering of Snowmane's hooves.
According to the other version, we build a pair of great wings out of light, supple withies and glide there on the hot zephyrs rising up from the gorge.

Was that so very different from what he was doing now? To be sure, the wings he'd flown on were made of horseflesh rather than withies, but that was just a matter of detail. The version of the legend Memo had been talking about was the one in which the storied Boy Whose Time Had Come lost to the Shadow Master, and perished with all his friends – along with the three worlds – at the Shadow Master's hands!

Even before he reached the lip of the ravine, Sagandran could sense the immense gulf of empty space that loomed before him.

Why in the name of all that is holy would Snowmane not spread his wings and fly?

And now, Snowmane seemed to be deliberately slowing, letting Arkanamon catch up. The two horses flashed past a couple of peasants, who stared open-mouthed.

It seemed to Sagandran that the mountain walls surrounding the ravine were closing in around him, grasping him like a giant fist and squeezing him, so that there was nowhere he could go but forward, taking Snowmane, himself and perhaps all of the Shadow World with him. It was as if he were at the bottom of a vast funnel being forced back up its shaft – all he could see was the immensity of the doom that awaited him.

The Shadow Master was right at their backs. The strange tuneless shrilling had ceased, but that was about the only thing to be thankful for; instead, Arkanamon was giving strange, rhythmic, automaton-like snarls. Sagandran glanced behind him just in time to see the blade of Arkanamon's sword whistling through the air toward Snowmane's rump. It seemed inevitable that the lethal-looking tip must score into the living flesh. The stallion put on a brief burst of extra speed, pulling himself clear of the swinging blade by mere inches.

And now the rim of the ravine was upon them!

Sagandran shut his eyes. Terror filled him. He knew that he should be praying, but he'd forgotten how to.

“You cannot escape me, boy!” screamed Arkanamon.

Suddenly the thrumming of Snowmane's hooves stopped, and Sagandran knew that there was no longer any ground beneath them – just empty air.

And a feeling of complete peace.

Reluctantly he opened his eyes. The bottom of the gloomy gorge seemed to tilt and swivel until Sagandran was no longer sure if it was ground or sky. He somehow managed to orient himself. He forced himself to turn around

At last, Snowmane had spread his great wings. Slowly, regularly, they beat up and down. But Sagandran hardly noticed. At the very edge of the abyss, Arkanamon was struggling desperately to pull the black steed up short – struggling but failing. Even at this distance, Sagandran could see the tormented beast's eyes rolling frantically as it dug its hooves into the black earth, throwing up divots of soil.

At the very last minute, the horse gave up the unequal contest and resigned itself to meeting its fate with dignity. Rather than merely slide over the cliff top, flailing in a hopeless attempt to preserve its life, it took the final pace voluntarily, trying to appear as if it were in full control.

Arkanamon threw himself from the horse's back, his hands outstretched toward the cliff edge, the black sword toppling away unregarded to join the horse in the plunge to extinction. For the briefest of moments it appeared that the man might manage to somehow cling on, but then a fistful of soil broke away and he was dangling by just one hand. He twisted his head around until he was looking Sagandran in the eye. For a moment it was as if the distance between them was not twenty yards, but just a handsbreadth.

In a whisper that seemed to fill the world, Arkanamon said, “I curse you forever, Sagandran Sacks.”

Then the cliff edge crumbled beneath his hand and he was gone, his robes spreading out around his falling figure, so that the last image Sagandran saw of the Shadow Master was that of a giant bat.

Moments later, the world changed.

At first, Sagandran couldn't work out what the change was. He could see everything more clearly. Incredulous, he looked up toward the sky that seemed to have held little but darkness forever. The sun had wedged open a crack in the perpetual clouds, and its golden radiance was raining down like a waterfall to bathe the land.

And now we know for sure.
Mirabella's voice echoed in his mind.
Arkanamon is dead.

“That's grea …” Sagandran began.

He never finished the sentence.

CHAPTER 10

T
HE
D
AWNING

ut what I still don’t understand,” said Sagandran, “is why I lost consciousness then.”

“What
I
don’t understand,” said Perima pursing her lips primly, “is how I managed to jump off the horse at that great speed without breaking my neck.” Then she grinned. “Leastways, I don’t know why I bothered just to save your behind.”

He hit out at her, but weakly. Nearly ten days later, he had yet to recover his strength completely. She caught his hand and they laughed.

At last, Perima’s face clouded. “I think Queen Mirabella is planning to explain it all,” she said.

Sagandran looked out the window. The bright sunlight of Spectram – of Sagaria – was pouring through to waste itself joyously on the intricately woven, richly embroidered rugs on the floor of his bedroom. He was lying on the bed with only a light blanket over him; the day was not hot, but pleasantly warm. Behind his head, Perima had propped more down pillows than were actually comfortable, but he hadn’t the heart to tell her so.

He shrugged his shoulders uneasily. “Is she planning another of her formal ceremonies?” he said gloomily. “Welcome home and honor the conquering heroes who saved the universe sort of thing?”

Perima’s face looked equally morose. She nodded.

There had been at least three such grand receptions so far. Sagandran thought there might have been a couple more while he was still too weak to be dragged from his sick bed. The three he had no excuse to duck out of had been interminable. As a recognized and official invalid, he’d at least had the perfect excuse to drift off to sleep, thus sparing himself the worst of them. Otherwise, he’d passed the time by covertly eyeing up the ladies of the Spectran Court (many of whom were extremely lovely and quite oblivious to the sort of dress rules that prevailed in the Earthworld) while also making sure that Perima didn’t catch him at it.

“I think Queen Mirabella’s planning a real big shebang for tonight,” Perima said. “Folk have gathered from all over Sagaria to pay their respects. We’re all quite famous here, you know. Well, of course, as a Princess of the Blood Royal of the Kingdom of Mattani, I’d have been quite famous anyway, but—”

“What is it they call Mattani again?” said Sagandran, smiling.

“The armpit of the world.” She didn’t smile back the way she normally did, but held his hand in both of hers and looked down at it as if there were something particularly interesting about his fingers. “Oh, I know. Who’s ever heard of Mattani, let alone one of its princesses? The funny thing is, I fled from Daddy’s court precisely to get away from this fame thing, and now I discover that I’m far more widely known than if I’d stayed at home and been a princess. Things haven’t gone according to plan at all.”

“Same here,” said Sagandran, then he brightened. “But it hasn’t all been bad, has it? We met each other, which would never have happened if we hadn’t been thrown into our adventures together.”

Perima stood. “Yes, you’ve been very lucky in that respect.”

“And you?”

She looked down at him with exaggerated hauteur. “Don’t flatter yourself, buddy boy.”

“I only said it because I read it in this book of courtly etiquette Memo found for me. You don’t think I—ow!”

They were both giggling again while Perima tucked the pillow she’d hit him with back behind his head.

“It wouldn’t be possible to explain my unconsciousness to me before Queen Mirabella does, do you think?” Sagandran said when she was seated once more in the bedside chair. “Just so I’ll understand it properly when she tells me herself?”

“It’s probably a good idea,” Perima admitted. “I had an infernal job deciphering it when she first told us about it. I suppose she has to make sure her every public utterance is expressed in the correct regal fashion. It sure doesn’t make for clarity.”

“Then explain it to me,” he said. “Please.”

Perima relaxed in her chair, putting her hands behind her head and staring at the ceiling.

“Well, the way I figure it is this. What you didn’t realize – what none of us realized, probably not even Arkanamon himself – is that you and him were sort of bound up. Spiritually, I mean. As opposite sides of the same coin: him being evil and you being good. At least, ‘good’ in a manner of speaking. You were really just a single entity.” She held up a hand. “I don’t mean you were the
same person, or anything like that. Just that, from the point of view of the soul of the three worlds, your spirits and their fates were so inextricably intertwined that essentially they’d become just one. Why do you think Arkanamon was so reluctant to kill you back in the Palace of Shadows? When Samzing sucked Arkanamon’s magical soul out of him, it became different. He could kill you then without also killing himself. He had only his ordinary human soul left. When that was finally extinguished as he hit the ground at the bottom of the gorge, well … it almost took you along with it.”

Sagandran concentrated, closing his eyes for a moment. “I think I can follow that,” he said. “It seems to make sense in its own weird sort of way. I’d been thinking along similar lines myself, but you’ve cleared it all up for me. Sort of.”

“I can assure you, Queen Mirabella’s version of it is a whole lot more complicated,” Perima said. “She gives it plenty of embellishments like” – her voice dropped into a very passable imitation of the queen’s – “karmic regurgitation and oral spectrotherapy.”

He burst out chuckling. “I don’t believe she said either of those things.”

“Something very like them, anyway. I told you it was all pretty hard to follow. I may have dropped off momentarily myself a time or two. Just because your snoring made me sleepy, you understand.”

There was a knock at the door and an elaborately pompadoured servant appeared. He smiled ingratiatingly. “It is time to prepare the hero of all Sagaria for tonight’s ceremony.”

Again, Sagandran shuffled in embarrassment. “I’m perfectly capable of preparing myself.”

“No, you’re not,” Perima contradicted flatly. “You haven’t the first idea how to put on half the garments that protocol demands for these occasions. Trust me on this. Someone would have to come and untie you.”

Sagandran yearned for his blue jeans, anorak and his scruffy old tennis shoes. He hadn’t seen any of them since he’d woken up.

Perima turned to the servant. “I’ll help him get all dandified up.”

“Certainly, ma’am,” said the servant, withdrawing. The door closed quietly behind him.

Sagandran felt the heat rising in his face. “But—”

She quashed his protests with a stare. “You remember the promise we made each other beside that pool in the forest?”

“Yes,” he said, recalling the occasion only too clearly, “but that was when there was just the two of us, alone, a long, long way from home and not knowing if we’d ever get back there.”

“What’s the difference? A promise is a promise. We promised each other there’d never be any secrets between us. That we’d hide nothing about ourselves from the other. Remember?”

“Ye-yes.”

“Then let’s get you out of that bed and bathed and into whatever ghastly concoction of clothing local etiquette demands you wear tonight. Okay?”

Later, when she was helping him get the tangles out of his hair, she added quietly, “Besides, in about five years or so we’re going to be married, and you’d better not tell me you’ve forgotten that, either.”

A trumpet played a fanfare. Queen Mirabella rose from the central throne on the dais at the far end of the chamber. Seated in the right throne was Grandpa Melwin. He looked a little startled to find himself there, but still had a humorously observant glint in his eye. Everyone had been concerned that Melwin might be psychologically scarred forever by his horrendous experiences at the hands of Arkanamon’s torturers, but so far there had been little sign of this. As for his body, some of those scars would always be with him, and the teeth he had lost would never return, but otherwise he’d healed with astonishing rapidity for a man of his age.

The left throne was empty.

Queen Mirabella clapped her hands to call for silence among the packed assembly. As the murmurs of conversation slowly died down, Sagandran looked around him at the throng. Over the past few days, acquaintances old and new had gathered in Spectram to express their gratitude to the plucky little band of misfits, himself included, who’d saved the three worlds from the dreadful fate that Arkanamon had been planning. Fungfari was here, boasting proudly of his daughter to anyone who would listen and to most of those who wouldn’t. Sagandran understood that relations between Perima and the king had not been properly patched up yet, and likely never would be, but you wouldn’t have known that to hear Fungfari. Lamarod, the entrepreneur of Wonderville, had been going around the court ever since his arrival busily selling the virtues of his pleasure grounds, and so far as Sagandran could see, had been fairly successful in doing so. Two opposomes had made the trip from Reversa. They’d been introduced to Sagandran as the Great Inventor and Willfram and, once he’d got used to their habitual speech mannerisms, he’d enjoyed chatting with them. The constant stream of good-natured insults reminded him of some of his happier times at school. The opposomes also reminded him of how gnomes would look.

A deputation had come from Qarnapheeran as well. Sagandran had been greeted warmly by Renada, Fariam, Shano and Fattanillo, who now seemed like old friends. For the Grand Master of the Elemental Orders to have journeyed out of the magical city at all, let alone so far and for so long, was, he had been told, a sign of a remarkable honor being bestowed upon the companions. But, in a way, it was Fattanillo whom Sagandran was gladdest to see; the birdlike man seemed to look upon Sagandran, in particular, as a sort of protege. He and Samzing had, Perima laughingly told Sagandran, fulfilled their promise the night following Fattanillo’s arrival in Spectram. They had gone on a tavern crawl to such devastating effect that both of them had been grumpy for days afterwards.

Good though it was to see all of these people who’d helped the companions along their way, it didn’t compare to being reunited with the companions themselves. As Queen Mirabella prepared to address the crowd, Sagandran looked among the faces that had become as dear to him as life itself: Sir Tombin, Samzing, Cheireanna, Flip and Memo – or what could be seen of Memo’s face behind a new and magnificently ornate pair of spectacles the memorizer had obtained for the occasion. And, of course, Perima – especially Perima.

“We’re gathered here,” the queen said, “to pay our respects to those who have saved our world of Sagaria from darkness.”

She beckoned, and the companions trooped forward to stand before the dais.

Uh oh,
thought Sagandran.
Here comes the truly embarrassing part.

“The darkness that threatened us is gone,” Mirabella continued. “We have suffered losses – innocents have died alongside brave soldiers – but, for those of us still here to mourn them, we know their sacrifice was not in vain. They died to give us hope, the hope that now the crystals have been restored and the Shadow Master destroyed, balance will prevail. The Shadow Master contained within himself the seeds of his own destruction, for he failed to realize the truth about the interdependence of darkness and light, how light can transcend darkness but darkness can only temporarily block light. The Shadow World is now accepting the gift we freely give it, the gift of our light. The Shadow Master has been destroyed, and his cruel inventions obliterated. The souls he stole are free now and hopefully will find peace.”